SCOTUS DECISIONS THAT AFFECTED OUR FREEDOMS
by Jaxhawk The Supreme Court was established in 1789, at which time it had no home building of it own.By 1836 during the Marshall Courts tenure(1801-1836) SCOTUS had declared it to be the arbiter of the Constitution in the Marbury vs. Madison decision. It is the first case read by virtually every first-year law student and is generally considered the greatest of all landmark cases. Marshall strained to reach his result. The plain words of Section 13 of the Judiciary Act indicate that Marbury went to the wrong court or invoked the wrong statute (or both), but Marshall proceeded as if the suit were authorized by Section 13 and then declared the statute unconstitutional on the grounds that it purported to expand the Court's original jurisdiction in violation of Article III. Marbury's suit was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. Marshall's decision--brilliant in its conception--allowed the Court to brand Jefferson a violator of civil rights without issuing an order that the President could have ignored. source: Exploring Constitutional Conflicts The concept was also laid out by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 78: “ If it be said that the legislative body are themselves the constitutional judges of their own powers, and that the construction they put upon them is conclusive upon the other departments, it may be answered, that this cannot be the natural presumption, where it is not to be collected from any particular provisions in the Constitution. It is not otherwise to be supposed, that the Constitution could intend to enable the representatives of the people to substitute their will to that of their constituents. It is far more rational to suppose, that the courts were authority 'designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their '. The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It, therefore, belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents." Although the previous paragraph is lengthy it illustrates the need to have strict Constitutional thinkers on the Supreme Court. Unfortunately we have not had them as history will illustrate. The Warren Court mandated busing of school children and placement of children in schools, not in their home neighborhoods, to satisfy racial preferences and further integration. This has resulted in great costs to the taxpayer, especially now when gas costs $4.00 a gallon, and the destruction of primary education as the test scores have showed. The Burger Court is infamous for It's Roe vs. Wade decision that has allowed the American genocide of tens of millions of unborn and partially born babies!! No decision of the Supreme Court in the twentieth century has been as controversial as the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision holding that women have a right to choose to have an abortion during the first two trimesters of a pregnancy. Attorneys for Roe had suggested several constitutional provisions might be violated by the Texas law prohibiting abortions except when necessary to save the life of the mother. The law was said to have been an establishment of religion in violation of the First Amendment, unconstitionally vague (the ground used in Blackmun's first draft of his opinion), a denial of equal protection of the laws, and a violation of the Ninth Amendment (which states that certain rights not specified in the first eight amendments are reserved to the people). The Court in Roe chose, however, to base its decision on the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the so-called "right of privacy" protected in earlier decisions such as Griswold v Connecticut (striking down a ban on the use, sale, and distribution of contraceptives). Deciding HOW to protect the right to an abortion proved as difficult. Justice Blackmun's approach, one clerk at the time said, "As a practical matter, was not a bad decision--but as a constitutional matter it was absurd." Roe's trimester-based analysis generally prohibits regulation of abortions in the first trimester, allows regulation for protecting the health of the mother in the second trimester, and allows complete abortion bans after six months, the approximate time a fetus becomes viable. For those who say "Women have a right to choose." I ask you, choose what? Their choice to have an abortion is not a right one can find anywhere in the Constitution. It is license, plain and simple. The Due Process Clause:United States Constitution states he following: "No State shall...deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Even former leaders of Planned Parenthood admit that the "fetus" is a living being! When a pregnant woman is murdered, the law requires that the perpetrator be charged not only with the murder of the woman, but also the murder of the baby in the womb! Go figure!! If the right to choose is really a constitutional right, why go on to ask whether the regulation unduly burdens that right? Do we ask whether a modest tax on public speaking would unduly burden speech? Ask yourselves these questions: Is there a state interest in preserving respect for life that is weakened by allowing abortions? If abortions are not immoral, would you call them morally dubious? Why is infanticide morally wrong (if you believe that to be the case) and abortion not immoral? On the other hand, why is aborting a first-trimester fetus (before the fetus has significant neurological development, emotions, or any other critical attributes of humanness) any more more immoral than killing, for example, pigs that do have thoughts and emotional lives? Could you argue, in fact, that killing a pig is the more immoral act? Until we can stop the degrading of the moral values of this once great Republic, we shall continue to slide down the slimy slope to perdition and demise as did the Romans, Soviets and all Nations that debauched themselves out of existence! __NOEDITSECTION__ Category: Opinions Category: Opinions by User Jaxhawk Category: September 13, 2008 Category: September 2008 Category: SCOTUS Opinions Category: WARREN Opinions Category: BERGER Opinions Category: ROE Opinions Category: CONSTITUTION Opinions Category: OPINIONS Opinions From The Opinion Wiki, a Wikia wiki. From The Opinion Wiki, a Wikia wiki.